For couple of years now or so I have been watching Apple with their ever growing number of patent applications for 3D Desktop technology. A lot of these are for glassless 3D display and 3D desktop of a sort. Not all of Apple's research is visible to outside world for obvious reasons. Apple ensures some of the key components of the technology is patented so to make it difficult for anyone to copy the whole concept. This kind of research is what is going to change our desktops sometime soon.

This latest Patent I came across is Insanely Complicated. This patent is for an AutoStereoscopic 3D display that tracks the user’s position in space and adjusts the display accordingly. It’s a monstrously complex way of doing things, but if Apple does not want you to wear glasses, so that is why they do all this work and this is one possible approach.

This approach involves a Kinect-esque motion and position sensor that would determine the position of the user by recording, the position of his eyes. The display surface would be a “programmable mirror” governed by a “angularly-responsive reflective surface function.” This technical patent requires considerable precision of the motion and eye detection, the principle seems sound if such a display surface exists.

This kind of "multidimensional desktop" applications suggest that Apple wants to take familiar parts of the Mac OS X/iOS desktop--such as the dock--and add depth, allowing you to stack documents or folders behind application icons on the "floor" of your desktop.

You can see that on the bottom surface, icons and other system object representations can be displayed according to a large scale; on the side surface, icons and system object representations can be displayed according to small scale; on the back surface, icons and other system object representations can be displayed in a list format

Considering the large number of investment and patent applications for this technology. There are a number situations in which this device would seems practical — allowing for freedom of movement is good, the only caveat is that one must keep both eyes toward the display, and reconciling different viewers so that interaction in the space is possible would be extremely tricky.

3D is going to be big for couple of obvious reasons. Firstly the Movie Industry as well as the Game industry has already decided this is the way to go. Recently an impressive 2.5 million Kinects have been sold so far. An even mightier impressive 4.1 million Sony Moves have been sold. So Apple is wise to invest a lot of energy on this area to ensure it keeps its dominance when the time comes that 2D is no longer enough. Secondly the demand for small devices is increasing whilst the requirements are for large screen real-estate. Therefore, 3D and the depth it will add to the smaller desktops is the logical way to increase real estate without the need for large screens.

As an iPad power user, I do understand some of the possible applications for a 3D aware HD iPad that the user can communicate with a type of “MultiDimentional Desktop Environment”. Along the side of the proposed desktop are a number of three-dimensional "function" icons that may trigger certain commands on each surface. These icons can be manipulated in 3D with a physics model so the icons can appropriately "fall" if displaced.

Considering the iPad user does not have the luxury of a fine dot on the screen that a computer mouse is able to give you, therefore, on the figure controlled iPad screen, and users large contact surface area, 3D icon that can wrap itself around one’s finger or have the ability of localized zoom in 3D space is going to be very useful. Currently using iPad to remote control a PC is challenging. However, some Remote Desktop Apps are learning to use some of the cool iPad usability and translate it into the mouse control on the pc. SplashTop is one good example.

To demonstrate have a look at BumpTop.com 3D Desktop Prototype have a look at the video. I know that this is meant for Desktops, and but to be honest I don’t see it selling much to desktop users. However, something similar on the iPad or any future slate type device does make a lot of sense.

Download now from bumptop.com

One thing to note is that this stuff from Apple has been researched in 2007. So I am sure they are way ahead of this by now. I would not be surprised to see a iPad 3D with iOS 3D in 2011.

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These are various short and long News Articles, Reviews and Blogs by Salar Golestanian and employees of SalarO.com as well as contributors of Scifiwood.com. The subject matter are mixed topics with Pure Science to Science Fiction as well as general topics on Web Trends, Technology, Software Engineering genre, or whatever subject that can affect the convergence of today's technology with Science Fiction in any shape or form. These Blogs and Reviews don't have commercial or corporate aspiration, so they are indeed completely independent views. Some of these entries may be short and just link you to the actual news or site that can expand further on the subject of interest. In Phase II we plan to incorporate some Social Networking applications within the portal.